I Saw Eternity the Other Night
By Timothy Day,
Allen Lane, 416pp, £25/$30
In a few weeks’ time, on Christmas Eve, the famous Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols will be broadcast from King’s College Chapel, Cambridge, and listeners throughout the world will think how wonderful it is that, in these crazy times of Brexit, Trump and other nightmares, the great English choral tradition carries on: soothing, consoling, with the same exquisite beauty that it’s cultivated since the Middle Ages.
The idea is an attractive one, but not quite true. And this book tells you in no uncertain terms how far from the truth it is. Undoubtedly, the choir at King’s has been around for centuries, begun in 1441. But after the Reformation things went downhill – to the point where, by the mid 19th century, the musical standards at King’s were as haphazard as they appear to have been throughout the entire Anglican establishment.
